Boleyn, Anne (c. 1507–1536)

A portrait of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, by Flemish artist Frans Pourbus. Anne was maid of honour to the king's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, when she aroused the king's interest. Married in January 1533, Anne was crowned queen in June, and her daughter Elizabeth was born in September of the same year.

A portrait of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England (c. 1536, in the style of Holbein). Boleyn was introduced to the royal court in the late 1520s, where she became the King's mistress. Her resulting pregnancy (with the future Elizabeth I) hastened a secret marriage and the final annulment of Henry's previous marriage. In 1536, after the miscarriage of a son, Anne was brought to trial on treason charges and beheaded.

Queen of England 1533–36 as the second wife of Henry VIII. She gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I in 1533, but was unable to produce a male heir to the throne, and was executed on a false charge.

Having no male heir by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, Henry broke from Rome and the pope (starting the Reformation) in order to divorce Catherine and marry Anne. She was married to him in 1533, but three years later was accused of adultery and incest with her half-brother (a charge invented by Thomas Cromwell), and sent to the Tower of London. She was declared guilty, and was beheaded on 19 May 1536 at Tower Green.